Byline: Victor Ivan

ලැජ්ජා නැතිකමේ දේශපාලනය

Even after Mahinda Rajapaksa’s election, Chandrika Kumaratunga will not give up the party leadership, and Ranil Wickremesinghe clings to his despite telling friends he would quit. Ivan recounts what a CID officer told him in confidence during the terror that followed the 1999 election, and ends by wishing that she not be jailed and made to suffer for what was done in her eleven years of rule.

විශ්‍රාම යන හැම ජනාධිපතිවරයෙක් ම පරික්ෂාවට ලක්විය යුතු ය

Ravaya explains its decision to go to court against the special privileges planned for former President Chandrika Kumaratunga and on other matters. Because presidential immunity prevents scrutiny in office, it argues, retiring presidents must be examined; it recalls its long pursuit of her assets declarations, her children’s foreign education and the President’s Fund.

කැත කුණු තවරාගත් සුදු නෙළුම

Ivan recalls a private celebration at Temple Trees after the 1994 election, and Chandrika Kumaratunga’s repeated public claims of personal purity, including that she never stole a cent, and sets them against the record. He argues that had Ranil Wickremesinghe treated her as he treated Anuruddha Ratwatte, things might have turned out differently.

නිර්භීතකමේදි ඇයට හිමි තැන අසමසමය

For all her failings, Chandrika Kumaratunga was unmatched in courage. Ivan tells how he learned of the Suriyakanda mass graves from a young engineer who came to Ravaya in 1993, how the exposure unfolded, and reproduces the verse appeal to mothers, sisters and daughters that she signed; he concludes that Suriyakanda mattered to her for its usefulness rather than its meaning.

ප්‍රභාකරන්ගේ වීර දින පණිවුඩය

President Rajapaksa reads Prabhakaran’s Heroes’ Day speech as an offer of friendship. Ivan argues that it was Prabhakaran, not the Sinhala voters or the SLFP, JVP or Hela Urumaya, who decided the election, blocking Ranil Wickremesinghe’s ‘peace with traps’ in favour of a candidate of ‘pure war’, and warns of a new Gemunu–Elara war or rebellions within the south.

Prabhakaran and the Presidential Election

Victor Ivan argues that the 2005 presidential election was decided not by the Sinhala people, the SLFP, the JVP or the Hela Urumaya but by Prabhakaran, who spoke on Heroes’ Day only after the result of his decision had been announced. Reading that speech, he traces why the LTTE leader wanted Wickremesinghe beaten: the ceasefire began boldly on both sides — roadblocks lifted, the ban withdrawn, a strategic route opened, demining agreed — but the Sri Lankan government would not even press for the Washington aid summit to be held on neutral ground, and talk of a ‘safety net’ confirmed a suspicion that nets are for catching fish. Campaigning on defeating separatism, invoking the lion flag while discussing federalism, and never once appealing on behalf of the Tamil people, Wickremesinghe lost, in Ivan’s phrase, both the branch he held and the branch he stood on. Prabhakaran instead installed the man the Sinhala people had chosen as their Dutugemunu against him. Ivan runs the Dutugemunu-Elara parallel through to its limits — this Elara is the younger man and will not request a duel — and sets out the options open to him, noting the warning that this was a final notice before a decisive struggle in the coming year.